


i watched it from afar

by restless5oul



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Family Feels, Ficlet, Gen, Stream of Consciousness, essentially just a feels dump, messy because i haven't proofread this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 00:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18324914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restless5oul/pseuds/restless5oul
Summary: for the first time in his life, he felt like he was staring at a ghost.





	i watched it from afar

**Author's Note:**

> basically i just had a lot of feelings about the test so i wrote this in like half an hour instead of writing my undergrad thesis.
> 
> title from isaac by bear's den.

Mick looked down at the prancing horse on his chest and then back up at the tiny mirror on the wall of the driver’s room Seb had let him borrow.

And for the first time in his life, he felt like he was staring at a ghost.

Not one he actually remembered, but one he’d seen countless times on TV and in photo albums. He finally understood why people always had that look on their faces when they looked at him. Why it wasn’t him they were seeing, but something else. He thought it should have terrified him. But it didn’t. There was an odd comfort in it, to not feel like himself, to feel like there was someone else walking alongside him.

There was a knock on the door and Mick finally broke eye contact.

“Coming.”

He picked up his helmet, and he opened the door, and he was met with tens, if not hundreds of pairs of eyes looking at him with all the pressure and expectations in the world locked inside their gazes. Usually he would have shied away. But this time he stared back, feeling like a stranger watching the whole scene from outside of his body.

He stepped up to a car that didn’t feel like his. Pulled on the helmet and took comfort in the familiar way it acted as a buffer to the outside world. It felt like a cocoon, shielding him. It made him feel like he was alone, and Mick preferred it that way. He stepped into the car, left foot, then the right, going through the motions methodically. Sitting in the car, the weight of it beneath him, the foreign feeling of the steering wheel beneath his hands, letting himself be strapped in, a dizzying sense of claustrophobia came over him.

He wasn’t ready, he didn’t belong here.

He glanced up as someone leaned over the cockpit, wondering if they could hear how hard his heart was beating, and how if he let go of the steering wheel they would see his hands trembling.

“Good luck,” Mattia grinned, reaching down to clasp his hand. Mick remembered when he’d asked him to do the test, how he’d told him it would mean a lot to the team, to Ferrari fans everywhere. It hadn’t escaped his notice how he hadn’t mentioned how much it would mean to Mick.

“ _Grazie_ ,” Mick said, years of practice enabling him to make his voice sound calm and level.

He looked beyond him to where Seb was stood behind him, a shining look in his eyes that was so paternal Mick felt a lump catch in his throat. He remembered how even after he couldn’t stomach visiting his father anymore, he told Mick that he would always have a place for him, should he ever need it.

Charles was stood next to him, eying the car, rather than Mick. They weren’t particularly close but Mick often thought about his offer to talk, to listen. He’d said he might understand, if only a little. Mick supposed he probably did. Even though things were different, sometimes he caught a glimpse of the same pain in Charles’ eyes.

He couldn’t read the expression on his mother’s face when his eyes finally found her, stood a little way back. There was pride yes, but also sadness, and maybe a little fear too. At the start of each year she asked him if he was sure this is what he wanted to do. He said yes. And it was true. But there was also part of him that didn’t know what else he was supposed to do.

He wished his sister was there. The person who had slept beside him for all those months when he didn’t want to sleep. Who somehow managed to make him laugh when he didn’t feel like it. The only one who knew exactly the right things to say, and when to say nothing at all. Because she really was the only person who would understand exactly how this moment felt.

“Ready?” the engineer’s voice came through the radio, crackling with static.

“Yes,” he lied.

He pressed his foot down, and he just drove.


End file.
